As I stepped inside, I was completely taken aback by Nicholas who stood completely still in the middle of the hall. I had never seen him so pale, and his frightened expression made my entire body overcome with an awful feeling.
“Nicholas, what's wrong? It looks like you've seen a ghost?”
He quickly turned around and pointed towards the glass doors in the kitchen. He turned his head to look at me. “Bad lady!”
He spoke!
Hearing him speak for the first time in a year made me overwhelmed with emotion and happiness at first but his exact verbal response stirred a fear in me that I had not felt before. I ran past him to look out the glass windows where I scanned the yard that led to a massive forest behind. There was no one there. I made sure that the doors were locked and then ran back to the front doors to lock them.
I turned to Nicholas who hadn't moved from his position. I knelt down so I was eye level with him. “Nicholas, look at me. What's wrong? Who is the bad lady?”
His expression didn't give off that he too was surprised at him suddenly speaking. “Lady with red hair from the forest. She hurt a girl who screamed. Red hair lady is back.”
***
I didn't know what to do. My parents were gone on a retreat and asked me to quickly go home to watch him since his babysitter, Nancy, wasn't picking up her phone and they got worried. And rightfully so, Nancy had fallen asleep on the couch on the living room. After waking her and having her leave, it was up to me to decide what to do. I called Artie who immediately came once I told him what had happened.
Artie arrived with his top shirt buttons undone and his hair slightly disheveled; completely contradictory to his everyday, perfectly groomed style. When I tried to explain to him what happened, he waved his hand to me and walked straight to Nicholas.
When Nicholas told him about what he saw last summer in the forest Artie tensed.
“Where exactly in the forest did you see her?”
“Near Coven's Pond.”
“Who did she hurt?”
“A girl.”
The skin on my hand became raw after I bit down on it to relieve my tension.
“What did she look like?”
“Red-hair – Bad lady, bad lady!”
Once Nicholas told him that he had seen the same woman again in our yard, Artie's face looked pained. He compelled Nicholas to relax and go to sleep which allowed me to relax for once as well.
Once Nicholas made his way up the stairs, Artie slowly took a seat on the couch near the fire place. “I don't know what to say.”
I looked at him not entirely understanding what he meant. “You don't have to say anything. I get it. It's not something anyone of us can explain. But do you think that I should at least call the police or what?”
He shook his head slowly and he looked hopeless. “They won't be able to do anything. I'm pretty sure that Nicholas witnessed a supernatural murder.”
“What are you talking about? How could you know that?”
“Last summer, around the time when Nicholas and his friends went missing, a girl was attacked and her body was found in the forest.” I had heard about it, but not much; the details were kept tightly shut by the police department who couldn't even be bribed by the local newspaper even though they usually caved into them. “The police ruled it out as an animal attack of some kind. And knowing that Illinois has a huge vampire population, I had my suspicions. So I went, compelled the head detective on the case to let me go and look at the body myself and...it wasn't an animal attack. It was a vampire.” He looked up at me and I gestured for him to continue. “I would bet anything that that was what Nicholas and his friends witnessed. Now, the main problem is that the vampire was never found.”
“Artie, if what you're saying is true, then there is a vampire murderer walking in this town and freely onto my yard. We have to do something. For one, Nicholas can't handle this. He'll become even more shocked than he was before; He stopped speaking the last time, imagine what could happen next.”
“I know but I can't do it on my own. I'll need to contact some of my friends who are good at tracking down other vampires.”
“Okay. And for now just start looking into all the red-head vampires you know, like Gwen.” Gwen might have a strange bi-polar complex about her which caused me to second guess my accusation but I'm not taking any risks by potentially letting a killer slip through my radar.
“Look Quinn, as much as I would love to lock up Gwen for anything it's a lot more complicated than that.”
“How? How is it complicated Artie?” My voice grew louder and I could hear my pulse quickening while a cold sweat dripped down my back.
“The vampire could have worn a red wig. Remember that vampires are smart. No vampire would walk around and give out their identity while committing a crime as heinous as that.” He looked down again and closed his eyes.
This was extremely difficult for Artie. Whenever he heard of a story of a vampire hurting a human in any way, he felt ashamed. He wanted vampires and humans to live peacefully together. And if vampires didn't live up to the rules set up by both the human and vampire government than vampires could easily go back to living in the shadows. All it took was a few vampire murders to make the media circuit and all could change for the worst, even for the good vampires.
“I'm sorry Artie. I didn't mean to raise my voice at you. I just... I don't understand any of this. And why would this person come back here?”
“Most likely because they knew that Nicholas was there that night and probably wants to get rid of anyone who saw what happened. Maybe they want to protect themselves, and all of the other vampires, from being found out.”
I started to panic once again. “Artie, we have to do something now! Call whoever you have to call. Do something. Please!”
He quickly got up, took his phone out and ended up in a conversation with someone. I went upstairs to make sure that all the windows were locked and texted my parents to return home quickly. I would have to get Artie to compel them to stay home with Nicholas and not leave him with an irresponsible sitter again, while the both of us figured this out.
Hopefully, we'll figure it out...
The sound of his voice echoed in my head over and over again in the most spine-chilling way,
“Bad lady, bad lady!”
CHAPTER seventeen
“What exactly are we doing here?” I stood in the middle of the library in Josef's mansion. Artie was frantically looking through ancient-looking texts and murmuring to himself. My patience was quickly dwindling with each passing minute, especially since I feared for Nicholas' safety.
Artie kept flipping through a book without looking up to see me. “I need to find a witch who can help us with this. Only a witch will be able to help us track down this person quickly and without much evidence to work off on.” He threw the book onto the ground and took another off the shelf next to him. “Josef always keeps records on most supernatural beings he meets incase he needs them and their abilities for something. And I know there was a witch in here somewhere that lives in the Midwest.”
I decided to help him look instead of standing there and being useless. “So, we're looking for a name and it will say 'witch' next to it?”
“It will be a list of names and, yes, it will have their supernatural origins next to them.”
I went through several oversized leather-bound books that had been covered in dust which made me begin to cough. As I raised my elbow to cover my mouth to cough, a quick flicker of light caught my attention; towards the other end of the room was a shinny vase and to its right was a transparent curtain separating that portion of the library. Artie was so consumed with his task of finding the list that he paid no attention to me. I slowly started to make my way towards the other part of the library. Once I made it past the light purple curtain I turned to check on Artie. He hadn't noticed that I moved.
There were two shelves on either sides of me that held relics and herbs. There was only
a table in the middle of the room with large scrolls that looked centuries old. I knew that I had to help find the name of the witch but I was beyond curious as to why this section of the library was secluded.
After a few quick reads at some of the scrolls in front of me, I quickly realized that they were about Josef's adoptive family. Each scroll had the Constane family name written at the very top. There were lineages drawn as well as what looked like financial records of some sort. One scroll stood out the most. There were drawings of girls with long fish tails and strange writing scribbled all over. I couldn't make out what language was. And there was something about it that made me feel as if it were important.
I should know this...
I took the scroll and made my way to Artie who smiled widely when he turned a page. “Yes! Got it.”
“That's great. How do we find her? Is there a number?”
“Better. There's an address. She's here in Richmond.” Artie immediately took out his laptop to find out where exactly the witch resided in Richmond.
“You know I live here right? Tell me her name, maybe I know her?”
“Perrie Richards?”
Funny. I didn't know anyone by that name at all. “No. Don't know her.”
“Found her. She is a Psych teaching assistant at the Richmond Community College.” Artie finally looked up at me to see if anything rang a bell.
I shook my head. “Never heard of her.”
Artie's eyes shifted to the scroll that I was holding and he tensed. “Where did you get that?”
“From over there.” I pointed behind me.
“Quinn, that's private. There's a curtain separating that part for a reason.”
“Well, it's a pretty thin veil. I mean, you can see right through it. Not very private, huh?”
“Quinn, if Josef found out that you went through his stuff there he would flip.”
“Sorry but...” I came around to sit next to him on the couch and unrolled the scroll. “What is this? Do you know what it says?”
His eyes left the scroll to meet mine. “There is a lot of things that have happened and continue to happen in this world that you will never know of.” He looked down at his hands. “Josef's vampire family was the stereotypical type of vampire family that you read in novels. Dark cloaks, the wives and daughters seduced male humans to kill, killed for blood, lurked in the shadows to taunt the living...” He looked back at the scroll and pointed a finger slowly at it, “and they would do anything for power. They hunted mermaids for decades and kept them secretly.”
Mermaids existed too? Of course, I shouldn’t have been too surprised. “Why?”
“Mermaids were thought to hold special magical abilities that no other supernatural entity did, not even a witch. They were also needed for this mythical ritual that was to resurrect dead vampires.” My confused look made Artie turn to me fully and further explain. “See, once a vampire dies, that's it. You can't feed them vampire blood to try to bring them back. Now, centuries ago, before Josef was even born, there was a huge massacre of vampires all across Romania. The king at the time wanted to wipe them off completely because he feared that they might overpower the mortals. There were some vampire families that survived and blended into the mortal life so well that no one ever suspected anything. Josef's family was one of the survivors. They and the other families vowed to have their vengeance. They sought out witches for help, and the witches told them that there was a way to bring back all of the vampires that ever existed before. It was some hocus-pocus ritual which the vampire families totally believed to be true. Now, the thing is witches couldn't always be trusted so it was mostly taken as some mythical crap by most vampires. I for one, don't trusted witches. Never did. But that didn't stop the others from pursuing it like crazy.”
“What does this have to do with the mermaids?”
“I'm getting there.” Artie put his arm on the top part of the couch and leaned back relishing the attention he was getting. I nodded to give him approval to continue. “The so-called ritual involved a few things such as candles, some shitty moonlight, wolfs-bane, yada-yada, and the sacrifice of a mermaid.”
“But didn't they have more than one mermaid? So it really didn't work, huh.”
“See here's the thing, they held off on the ritual until the day the Romanian king was to hold a banquet of honor for his war victories. They wanted to put on show along with their vengeance. But they made a mistake by waiting. Not every single vampire was okay with bringing back the dead vampires. And not every one of them wanted to hurt humans.” Artie gave a slight smile before continuing. “There was a small number that secretly got together and got rid of the mermaids so that the ritual would never happen.”
“What do you mean 'got rid of'?”
Artie looked to the scroll again. “They burned them. Every single last one of them. That way the vampire families could never attempt the ritual.”
“That's awful... but couldn't they just go out and find another one?”
“They tried but no luck. There were very little mermaids to begin with and they apparently had found them all before.” Artie got off the couch and picked up the scroll. “Sucked for them”.
“Does Josef know about this? And about his family being the way they were?”
“Of course. The Constane's didn't keep secrets from one another. He eventually grew up to learn about it.”
I took the scroll from Artie's hand. “But he's nothing like them.” I smiled at him before I walked to the back of the library to put back the scroll.
“We should head out now if we want to catch this Perrie person. But I'm gonna go get a quick refreshment before we go. Give me a few minutes.” I knew what he meant by “refreshment” and his disheveled look now made sense; he was weak and needed to drink blood. Even though we were possibly running on a short time limit, I was ready to give Artie the time he needed; nothing's worse then a grumpy and deprived vampire. It could actually be dangerous.
I watched him walk out the door through the veil and hid the scroll in my tote bag.
***
Walking through the campus of Richmond's community college made me think about how my life had changed and turned completely crazy. I went from being an ordinary student who didn't know where life was taking her to having to solve a supernatural killing case.
Oh, and I'm seeing a vampire.
Just before me and Artie reached the Psychology department my phone buzzed. It was a text from Josef.
J: Hey. At work. Bored. Thinking about you...
For the first time in the last few hours, my lips quirked up to smile. Though it didn't last long, it helped me to keep the tears inside that had been wanting to stream out as we made our trip to the school.
Q: Hey :) Hanging with Artie.
I didn't want to give him any details. I didn't want him to get worried in any way.
J: I get jealous when you spend time with Artie and not me. Sorry for the honesty :)
Q: Let me know when you get off work; I'm sure we can arrange something to soothe your envy.
It was best to act positive and not ignore him.
J: I'll hold you to it. I'll call you later.
“Quinn, who are you texting at this time?” Artie stared at me impatiently as he had his hand on the knob of a door in front of us.
“Sorry, my bad.”
He turned and opened the door. It was a big room filled with glass, books and posters of the human brain all over the walls. On the far end on the room was a green chalkboard and a brown-haired girl with black-rimmed glasses looking at a laptop. “Office-hours are over. You can email Professor Higgins if it's urgent.” Her tone indicated that she didn't really like her job that much.
Artie continued to walk towards her. “Perrie Richards?”
The girl immediately looked up from her laptop and set her eyes on Artie. “I'm sorry, you have the wrong person.” Her eyes slit into a cat-like way as if he were her prey.
Artie smiled. “No, I t
hink we have the right person. I know you know what I am and I know what you are which is great. We don't have to go through all of those awkward vampire and witch greetings. And you should be glad to know that we are seeking your amazing fortune-telling skills.”
The girl was not impressed by Artie and looked insulted. “I'm not a fortune- teller. But if I were, I would say you will likely be dead in the next few minutes. Oops, actually for a vampire, you already are. How ironic.”
Artie's grin only grew as he turned sideways to me. “This is why I never liked witches.”
I didn't want her dislike for Artie to get in the way of why we were truly there so I stepped in to take over the conversation. “Perrie, we need help and only a witch can help us. See...my little brother is being followed by some crazy killer whose scent can't be caught even by a vampire. So, obviously it's really bad.” I felt a heaviness in my chest that threatened to arise. “Please... Can you at least help me – even if you don't like vampires?”
Perrie stepped away from her laptop and came around the tall desk to stand in front of us. “Look, I might be a witch but that doesn't mean I practice it. I was born a witch. I didn't ask for it. So please leave.”
I looked over at Artie and I knew he felt just as defeated as I. I took one more chance and stepped up closer. Perrie raised her hands, “If you come closer, I swear that I will cause you and your friend immense pain. I just need to snap my fingers.”
The firing look in her eyes told me that she wasn't lying. I looked over at Artie who was already slowly backing out and I turned to follow him. Artie would have to find another witch.
“Hey, what's in your bag?” I turned around to find Perrie eying my tote bag. Somehow I knew exactly what she was asking for.
The Touch Series: Initiation Page 15